Liars Garden

Chapter 17

They dug up the garden. There were people in uniform everywhere and they all helped pulled the dirty old trunk to the surface. Me and Chris held each other in the police station as we watched footage of it on the news. They found dad easy. He was exactly where I said he was, just barely below all the lilies. An eleven and a nine year old didn't have a the strength to dig very deep.

Mom was on the run. She had come home when the cops were still on the porch. She had fled as soon as she realized she might not win. Maybe she had more to hide then I had thought.

Leslie was still missing.

But they found her backpack buried in a shallow hole by the rose bushes. Just feet away from dad's head.

My heart still felt frozen.

Had she gotten away after all?

Chris swore he had seen her get into a car and leave that night. But did she come back at some point? The bag was her school bag. We saw it on the news. There was a missing persons report but so far, only hours after it all, no one had come forward saying they saw Leslie. 

Mom was a monster. The name we knew her by wasn't her real one. Nothing about the woman we knew was real.

She was a monster we had just barely gotten away from. Her journal, found in her night stand, talked about the horrors she wanted to inflict on me. I would have been in a hole beside my father if Hanna hadn't called the cops. Chris would have dug the hole. 

As I held Chris close to me I told myself from here on out I was going to tell the truth. No more lying and pretending everything was okay.

No more burying the truth of things in the garden.

I was eleven when my mom shot my dad in front of me.

I was eleven when I lied to my sister.

Buried the body in the garden.

Covered it with dirt and pretended it was all my fault.

  I was eleven and I lied about it all.